Clash
by Mantichorus
Summary: When fighting between men proves futile, monsters must take the burden. As Hojo mutates into Lifeform Hojo NA, Vincent unleashes Chaos to end the violence. Rating for death.


_A/N: this is an idea that's been kicking around inside my head for years on-and-off, and I've finally gotten around to giving it a proper form. Basically, it's a retelling of the battle against Hojo on top of the Mako Cannon at the end of the original game._

_And yes, I do sometimes deliberately skip other characters' turns so that Chaos is the only one attacking. I should mention, this isn't based on the compilation, merely the original game. So, Chaos looks like an angry demon, not Vincent on a bad hair day. :P_

_If this looks familiar to you, then it has been sitting on ACF (forums. for a while, but I'd promised some friends I'd review their stuff, so I decided to update my account. _

_DISCLAIMER: I don't own FFVII, or it's characters, etc. Their likenesses belong to Square-Enix._

**CLASH**

Fittingly, it was raining that night. The rain lashed down from the skies, and thunder roared across the heavens. 

We thought we'd seen the last of him. 

We were wrong.

The warped and over-sized shape of his Hellectic form lay across the grating, the rain coating it with a fine sheen. Cloud, Barret and I turned to leave, the Mako Cannon's controls disabled. Nothing could reactivate them now. Then we heard a strange sound, like someone pulling themselves out of a mire. We each turned and saw another abomination pulling itself from Hellectic's corpse.

A tentacle ran down the back of his head, where his ponytail had been in his human form, and another took the place of his legs. He flopped across the floor, seemingly helpless. I dimly heard Barret swear behind me, and the soft grate of Cloud drawing his sword in preparation for battle. 

Then he took to the air, psionic energy holding him aloft at the height his legs would have if they still existed. An unnatural freak, you may say. I agreed, that night, when I had seen too much blood spilt, by friends and foes both. All because of this man's sin so many years ago. So, I decided to fight him myself -- another unnatural freak, but within me was something ancient and angry. 

A natural freak...or perhaps, supernatural freak. 

A demon, older than worlds, bound to my body through some unknown alchemy.

Chaos. When its energy shot from my body, they understood that only a monster could defeat this monster, and stepped back. The energies released wracked and changed my body, until it stood in my place, our minds as one. Sometimes, we fought and still fight for control, but this time, our purpose was one.

What was left of him, of his mind and soul...untouched by Jenova's taint...I cannot say and dare not think. However, he recognised the challenge and with a shriek, charged. Chaos replied with an unholy roar of its own, and rushed to meet the battle.

At first, our battle was in the realm of mortals -- we fought on the walkway by the Cannon's control panel, utilising the skills we had both paid horrendous prices for. He wrapped his serpentine lower body around my arms and wings, lashing out with the scythes that had replaced his arms, and the appendage on his head slapping its poisonous barb at me.

Unholy fire glowed in Chaos' eyes, and it summoned spectral skulls to harry him, and as he fell back, its wings became as hard as sabres, and I struck at him with them.

Cloud and Barret...they watched on, silently, hoping that I would win the battle with him, and then with Chaos. They did not interfere, except to offer to heal me when they believed I was flagging. I rejected with a shake of my head.

Then, abruptly, the fight parted, and we warily circled each other. One way or another, the struggle would be decided by fate, or some other force -- we were too evenly matched in terrible power. He studied me, and then, silently, flew upwards into the sky. Chaos spread its wings, and I too, took to the heavens.

A war in heaven...between two demons...truly, the universe has a perverse sense of humour.

We rose, and he chose the height we fought at. Somehow, I could sense Cid's airship above us, somewhere.The cost of failure was obvious -- their lives, extinguished. And so, I gave into the demon's words inside my head for the only time, and channeled it all -- my hatred, for him, the ShinRa, myself; my despair; my disgust; my guilt; my sadness; my _pain_ -- I channeled it all into my blows.

He reeled from each hit, but none of them fell him. I poured more and more into each hit, but still he endured. However, once I remembered Lucrecia, and the love I had felt for her (yes, even then I used the past tense - love so long unrequited and so badly abused scabs over, but, like all love, never truly heals) and the suffering he had inflicted on her...

Yes, in the end it was love that gave me the strength to beat him.

The memory of love in my strength was too much for him, and almost too much for Chaos to bear. I kept it by me through force of will, and borrowed its unholy strength to grab the abomination. It broke his back and threw it to the ground with all its might. It then staggered in mid-air and broke into a dive. It would soon relinquish its hold on me, on the material world.

I landed on the gantry myself -- the strength of Chaos spent, its form spilling from me in a dark mist -- and looked down at him. By some twisted stroke of fate, he still clung to life, tenuously, toturously. After all the hatred and disgust I had felt for him, now all I felt for him was what I probably should have all along...

Pity.

Calmly, I took aim with the Death Penalty and shot him in the heart, and then, as an after-thought, through the head. I heard footsteps behind me, I turned and saw Cloud approaching me grimly. He gestured me out of the way, and then unleashed a fire spell to cremate the body. He, Barret and I stood silently as the body turned to ashes.

The silence was then broken by four words. I felt two consecutive shocks, the second greater than the first.

The first was that the words came from my own lips.

The second was that, perhaps for the first time in thirty long years, the voice that spoke them was truly mine.

"Hojo...Rest in peace..."


End file.
